A Most Excellent Day in Denver

All my plotting for a “day tour” in Chicago had been blasted to tiny bits by events as they materialized from the continuum. Happenstance had its way with my plans which now lay in ruins. Well, to paraphrase a nameless stereotypical Mexican Banditin the Movie “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”, “Plans? We don’ need no estinking plans!”.

This current location has a train station less than a mile away. Yesterday, I found out the hard way that it might as well be on the moon if walking there is contemplated. A stroll yesterday revealed that there is a big ugly gash in the Earth and an excessively large grain elevator that separates the station from the truck stop and the rest of the world. I could see busses and trains in the distance, but the route to get there was not forthcoming. I figured out that it might be possible to walk down the elevated freeway to get there. I am not so inclined.

Above: This view from Google Maps (obviously an older photo) shows the area where the new station was built in red. The Gash is pointed out by the blue arrow, the Elevator by the Yellow and the location of the truck stop is off stage to the left.

There is a bus stop diagonally across the street from the truck stop. It is the number 44 bus that takes me around the gash and the elevator to the shiny new station. The bus stop ain’t much to look at (below).

Above: The bus stop in question.

Above: The station’s newness is obvious. The grain elevator is seen. The Rocky Mountains loom in the distance.

The train took me to Union Station in Downtown Denver. From there we find free shuttles down Broadway that end at the Capitol.

Above: The Capitol Building of the State of Colorado. It is currently under construction. The cost and delays are a subject of local dispute.

Above: The Capitol Dome from within.

Rest Area at I70 exit 224, Kansas.

A new load assignment came in to interrupt the story. Deadhead to Dodge City Kansas for a load of beef to bring to Omnivores in Maryland.

Denver also has a nice big city park where the Zoo and Museum of Nature and Science are found. Both are worthy of a visit, if I had the time – even at the steep prices of admission. As it was, I wandered around and got some good photos. Remember, this is about the journey, not the destination. The park is reached by a bus near the Capitol to Colorado Avenue.

Above: Wolf statues in front of the Museum. These are obviously not “hands-off” art since there is a sign warning that the brass wolves may be really hot. 😉

Above: A Mastadon statue based on some remains found at a construction site. Truly a Magnificent Work, in my humble opinion. The scale is not obvious and I had no one to put in the picture for reference. I estimate the tip of the animal’s trunk to be 18 feet off the ground.

Above: A view of the park’s lake and the Denver skyline with the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

About this time I got nervous about leaving the truck, so I went back to check on it. A bus takes me North to that same rail station and I go back to the truck stop on that same #44 route. As I arrived, there was a moment when I did not see the truck. It was hiding behind a new arrival. See it there behind the Square-nose Peterbilt?

Above: My truck is there, hiding behind the Peterbilt, just to scare me. By coincidence there is a Freightliner in the foreground and a Volvo past my Kenworth. Those four represent maybe 90% of the trucks on the road in the US.

I ventured out in the afternoon to see the airport. I could have cut the $9 day pass to $4.50 without the airport, but that particular Denver facility has a storied history ofcost overruns and a baggage systemthat would make a Rube Goldberg machine look like the picture of efficiency. It was so horrifically bad that the airport sat idle for 16 months after its completion and scholarly studiesandanalyses by consulting firms were done analyzing this massive failure. The airport and baggage system costs ballooned from$700 Million to something like FIVE BILLION DOLLARS.

All this, with pictures after the next leg of the Kansas to Maryland Beef Transit. I have to sleep now. Life is keeping me busy, and unexpectedly happy.

Flying J Truck Stop, I-70 near Effingham, Illinois

That same bus gets me back to the train station and I am whisked off in the out -of-town direction. Before long, the cityscape disappears and the countryside ensues.

Above: On the train to DIA. East of Denver, the landscape is not what comes to mind when “Colorado” is uttered.

Above: This construction of telephone poles on stilts greets new arrivals at the airport. There is mirror image of this on the other side. Their artistic significance was not immediately obvious.

Above: The Westin Hotel, left makes a bold architectural statement.

Above: Across from the Hotel the airport terminal is another statement that clashes dramatically with the Westin.

Note the aluminum “grassland” in the foreground.

Above: The Aluminum Alfalfa Field (I made that name up) is a wind-driven mobile sculpture. Its charm was mostly lost on this windless day. While I can imagine that interesting waves and ripples would be generated, I am an old techno-nerd. I suspect that the people – especially young folks – now are so jaded by Computer Generated Images that they are not impressed by such things.

Above: The telephone poles viewed from the upper level, outside the hotel

I had plans to see other lines on the transit system, but it was getting late in the day and I would need to roll to Kansas at 5:00 AM. I will no doubt be back this way and there is a line to Golden that might be interesting.

The weather was perfect for an entertaining and interesting day. Even though I am marooned again for a day and a half, instead of boredom and depression I find contentment and purpose in a different sort of journey.

I said at the beginning of this Walkabout that did not know what I would learn.

Here is the first conclusive lesson. It requires some explanation:

I have traveled a great deal in my life and I have always found it compelling and satisfying. Looking back – I had not always sought out occupations that involved travel, but they seemed to have found me nonetheless. When I found myself trapped in an office job in a windowless gang-office in Houston, I found a way to transfer to a part of the same company that works in the field (jungle, desert, mountains) in South America. There was no “transfer policy” in said company, as they did not expect people to want to move to the field. It seems that “normal people” wanted to come in from the field and work in an office. If you have not discovered this independently by reading my posts, let me just admit right now that I am not “normal”.

There were many reasons for my intention to go and work abroad, none of which had anything to do with travelling. The most important result of that decision is my wife, who I met in Caracas, Venezuela (she is from Peru) and the family we have raised. Beyond that, I found that travelling back and forth to the field was the most pleasant and interesting time, despite the sadness of leaving the family and the joy of returning.

Having said that, this latest change in my life has made clear what I knew only vaguely before. That is: I am most content and my soul most at ease when traveling. With the exception of my family, the destination is just the excuse for the journey.

Steve

Update: I-70 Tollway Travel Plaza @ Mile marker 112 in Pensylvainia.

My journey from Denver to Maryland has thus far passed through Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. I noticed Trump signs early on and kept a rough count. There were about twenty seven (27), some in every state. The largest was a billboard about 20 feet across. The smallest was a custom made sign in West Virginia that said “Trump Digs Coal”.

As you may know, West Virginia coal miners have been begarded into poverty by a cruel and hateful Obama who is running coal companies out of business for no good reason*. Hillary promises to do the same.